A Brief Respite from the Campaign Today

I was stunned this morning to actually hear a news story about healthcare. I was only half listening waiting to hear what Sarah was doing today. Then I heard people critically talking about healthcare and the plans to address this mess.  That was messed up.

But anyhow Sarah is apparently at Git-mo being placed in stress positions to facilitate learning a few pithy remarks and names of the Supreme Court Judges so she might sound intelligent during the debate Thursday. I predict Superbowl type rating for this one!!!

Drinking games for the debate anyone??? 

I want to stop writing about palin

This Palin thing is a great lesson, maybe the greatest lesson ever for people to  learn why you need to KNOW YOUR LEVEL. 

I used to take swim lessons as a kid. Hated them. Bobbing up and down at 9 am in a cold pool on Monday, Wednesday and Thursday in the middle of summer vacation.  What a waste of valuable cartoon watching time. I eventually taught the lessons as a lifeguard in the same pool. It was still a waste of valuable cartoon time, but at least I got paid.  

The kids were graduated into a variety of levels. They all had irritating aquatic related names that gave a sense of where the students were at in terms of development. They started off as tadpoles, then maybe minnows, fish, dolphins, topping off with sharks.  But by that time they were sharks, the kids were good enough to out swim me, so we would hire them as lifeguards, especially if they were cute. But as a kids you always wanted to be in the bigger kids classes. They would get to wear goggles, have kick boards or jump off the diving boards. 

The real lesson came once it was open swim and you tried what the bigger kids were doing.  As a minnow jumping off that diving board,  you sunk and barely made to the ladder.

Sarah Palin,  in this lame metaphor of swim lesson are life, Palin is a fucking turd in the pool. A total distraction that has closed the pool until the adults can get the skimmer out, scoop her out and super chlorinate the entire god damned water body. John McCain pinch this floater..... I have to stop with the scatological metaphor.

Watch her going head to head with the "fish" level Couric about some pretty important issues of the day, like "what the hell is McCain doing talking about fixing the economy, when he was one of the people who broke it?" Palin really should not be in the pool. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vbg6hF0nShQ

Katie kinda had a "shark" look in her eyes at one point. 

What happens when Sarah jumps in the deep end?

That Sinking Feeling

Maybe this is how people felt at the advent of the Great Depression.  Uneasy, not really sure what the hell all the politicians, economists and financiers were talking about.  Maybe they were being distracted and wondering what sort of shoe Hoover's VP was wearing? 

Well we are going through the most stupendous economic crisis since the Depression, and those are some pretty hot pumps.  (Really how do you stand up in those things? Can she shoot and field dress a moose in those?)

The Bushes and Congress are in the process of buying a bunch of bad loans and investments with our money. These were made by wealthy people wanting to get richer still.  Read this post to get a much smarter persons run down on this hole mess.  

We are again socializing the financial system in this country. They are giving up toward $1 trillion of our tax dollars to the financial class to prop up their failed economic policies of the last 30 years. It is socialism, not for the benefits of the masses, but for the upper classes. It didn't have to happen, and this isn't the first time in the last 30 years. 

I have always been suspicious of this retirement system with the 401k accounts. It has placed many more Americans directly in the stock market. Now we are psychologically invested in these markets. When we have social workers and cashiers at the grocery store concerned about how the Dow is doing, then the job of getting the American people to pay for these bailouts is taken care of.  We obviously have to pay for a bailout as everyone's retirement is invested in these corporations.  And many people want to double down with this system and privatize Social Security. This idea is brought to you by the same people who brought you the Savings & Loan Crisis of the 80s, the energy deregulation in California and Enron, and now the sub-prime mortgage crisis. Be afraid, very afraid.

But really what gives me that sinking feeling is that realization that in this 2 party system the Democrats have abandoned their roll as a vocal opposition.  If Obama is elected, any swing to the left or towards more rational policies will be meet with howls of resistance, while all this deregulation and exposing our economy to ever increasing risk was meet with what? I have to keep chanting "avoid overwhelming sense of cynicism, must avoid overwhelming sense of cynicism." If that takes over then what?

Aidan's Electoral Lessons or Understanding The Election

Republican Candidate Ann Young

My 10 year old announced the other day that the cats in the house were holding an election to see who would be President. 

We dove into this one pretty easily. You see, we have enough cats in the house to establish a new Congressional district for Alaska and we tend to do a bit of the anthropomorphizing with the animals. 

Well we went through the primaries pretty quickly and it seems like we have the two candidates firmed up for the general election. Teeny is the Democratic nominee and Annyong, who changed her name to Ann Young is the Republican. 

As usual in these things Ms. Young and her operatives have seized the momentum of the campaign.  Teeny's is seen as foundering as she continues to try and address boring issues that relate to the actual day to day operations of the cattery;  litter box placement, the quality and safety of pet food, and veterinary care.

Ms. Young on the other hand has proposed many innovative approaches to governing that build on the tenure of the last eight years of rule in the country at large. She has proposed additional feedings of the tainted canned food, the elimination of all terroristic birds of prey. Most ground breaking, she has proposed the streaming of governance by eliminating the legislative branch. She will then assume these duties as well.  She is quoted as saying "If I am going to enforce a law, I damn well better have written it. I ain't going to enforce some crap that the Demoncats have written. Put yourself in my position, would you want to have to marry some gay person, screw the Demoncat Party."

Annyoung really doesn't believe this stuff, but she knows that she can't get elected without a little pandering. Ms. Young, is available for adoption along with her supporters. Please see my wife's cat blog for details. 

Republicans Have Arrived to Save Our Sarah

This is  silly. The theater of the absurd. Just freaking nuts. But I have faith that it is going to get better and better because we now have the DC Republicans here in Alaska to run things for awhile (not just Ted and Don, but other guys from back east.)  These folks have done such a good job back there, let's bring em on up here. We need the help.

Look at the photos of the two McCain Campaign shills who have been sent up to run interference for our governor on this "troopergate" fiasco.  Standing next to the poster board with the web of relationships lined out showing us the true nature of the scandal.  And the other poster which renames the ordeal "Tasergate", like it is just about that trooper tasering his kid.  But notice all the lines are leading to Barack Obama.  Reading the captions on the poster, the relationships are tenuous at best. Some lines aren't even explained. Just lines.  It is DUMB, but it is a good piece of propaganda, you see all the lines are going to Obama. He and the evil Democrats run Alaska you know. 

Sarah try this:

 "I made a mistake. I let my concern for my family and the concern for the safety of citizens of the State of Alaska override my better judgment. I take responsibility for my action.  I overstepped my authority and I have to pay the price. I offer to the people of Alaska my humblest apologies and to the Legislature, I leave to you the consequences for my action.  Also, I believe so deeply in the importance of Senator McCain's mission and absolute necessity of getting him in the White House to protect the safety and health of these United States, that I now believe that these issue that have been created now hindered his campaign. I have offered to Senator McCain to withdraw my name a Vice Presidential nominee of the Republican Party in 2008 and will seek to serve him to the fullest of my abilities as he sees fit." 

Then we can have her family crying behind her, preferably Todd will have a hanky and dab his eyes lightly (no sobbing from him), the son will be back from his duties in Iraq standing, in uniform, crying, the daughters must both holding babies (find an extra one.) Sarah should turn hug the family and leave the podium holding baby Trig. The family should follow. 

People would eat that up. She have immediate goddess status. Her political fortune would be minted. She would then be moved to the top of the ticket and McCain would stab her behind stage at the next campaign event. Or 2012? 

But seriously Alaskans, we are being mugged by these operatives. The McCain people are advising an attorney that the State has hired to represent Palin  during the investigation. Do you think he is representing the best interests of Palin?  Should an attorney that the State has paid for be getting advice from a political operative? Does he have a license to practice in Alaska? Is any of this good for the State? 

Dumb, dumb, dumb,dumb.

Sarah Palin as President

Busy summer. I was out west and in Kodiak for most of May and in Cook Inlet on a research vessel all of August. The rest was kind of a blur of prepare and decompressing from the trips. I want to write about those trips in the next month or so but I have to re-start with the easy stuff. I would like to say, Sarah Palin is more than just a small town mayor and hockey mom. (I initially wrote that she is a dick, but she doesn't deserve that, although.) She is a crafty and gutsy politician.

She has seen opportunity and she has grabbed it. She has placed herself in the right places and used her assets to move her career up the ladder amazingly fast. But really we all know it, she just can't be vice president of the United States, she is barely a governor. She could be VP, if she and McCain are elected, and he lives, and he just has her sitting around like Nelson Rockefeller, going to the occasional funeral. But what if..... Makes me shudder. 

She scored some points early in her career as governor but it was just too easy. She has had a state budget busting at the seams, she has had a cadre of corrupt, arrogant and incompetent dunces to use as foils.  I now know how many Texans must have felt when they had a chance to get rid of George back in 2000. But we know how that one turned out. 

This is some weird melding of reality TV and an Alaska Tourism Marketing campaign. A staged drama given to us in every increasing amounts with a bunch of Alaskan imagery and myths thrown in for the viewers in the lower 48. Screw healthcare, the deficit, the wars, the country is now rivetted to see Bristol's emerging stomach, or hear stories about Mr. Palin falling off his snowmachine during a race, or mooseburgers. Who cares if she doesn't know what a vice president is supposed to do, this is great theater.

As Alaskans we have the duty to tell the world that we elected her because she was cuter than Tony Knowles, and certainly smarter than Frank Murkowski (not saying much.) But we were certain that the oil companies would continue to run our state for us and that it would be OK to have the "hottest governor" in the US.